LDV42

GARY HOFFMAN | LIÈGE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC | CHRISTIANARMING 27 Gary Hoffman talks about his new recording Why did you choose this coupling? I had a project focusing on the end of the First World War: Schelomo was written during the war and the Elgar’s Concerto dates from just after the end of it. The presence of the war’s consequences is evident in the discourse of Elgar’s Concerto, his swansong, a kind of farewell to the world of yesterday. I think there’s an emotional dialogue between the two works. In fact the coupling has been done before: Pierre Fournier and AlfredWallenstein recorded the two works in the LP era and they were released on the same disc. I might add that, though it’s not at all the same type of work, there is a tension, a tragic atmosphere that can also be found in Debussy’s Cello Sonata. Leonard Rose recorded Schelomo twice, and on one of his two recordings he plays the cello you play today. Yes, in the first recording with Mitropoulos he was still playing his Goffriller, but in the stereo version with Ormandy in Philadelphia, he already had his Amati; so my cello has his imprint in this work. Rose was an orchestral soloist, like my teacher János Starker. The fact that they were both principal cellists in prestigious orchestras before beginning their solo careers gave them an extra freedom in the way they approached works.